papacy and so the logic was simple, they wanted continuity. socardinaljosephratzingerseemedan obvious choice. this time there is no such obvious front runner and no simple, single, overriding issue that's driving the reflection, which is why a lot of us believe this conclave may be a little bit more complex and it may take a little bit longer for the cardinals to reach consensus. >> all right. all right, john, let's come back here to new york for a second. melinda, let me ask you, when you're looking at this from the outside, other than the timing which you know i'm completely obsessed with, that's mainly because i have to figure out when i have to get to rome, but when we're looking at what might be different this time, that's the excitement, right? what are you looking at from the outside? what do you think the possibilities here are? and are we being too excited? >> in terms of the candidates or in terms of what we're going to see going forward? >> because pope benedict has created precedent here by saying i'm resigning, this is the best thing for the church, will that i